I’m back from my holiday! I bring you Munmun Manman’s full lyrics page thanks to Jordi and now I can finally work on some stuff I missed!
Today I want to talk about romanized titles on non-Japanese shops. Now that BUTAOTOME’s Touhou discography is on iTunes and Google Play, we can read some “official” romanizations for their music.
I always thought iTunes international titles were written by someone else who is external to the artist. For example, the album “TAITO GAME MUSIC REMIXS” has the track 影の伝説 ～豚乙女mix～ written as… “Legend of Kage (Buta-Otome Mix)”. Yeah, with the hyphen that only uninformed western fans still use :violettriggered:
Japanese people usually don’t care about romanization and they tend to mix different formats. An example is the word “syoujyo” in the Shoujo Rengoku albums. It’s a mix of Hepburn and Kunrei. It should be either “shoujo” (hepburn, the type of romanization TC uses) or “syouzyo” (kunrei/nihon-shiki). And if we check other sources, we have “Shoujo” on Shoujo Rengoku 3’s cover, “Sho-jo” on Radical Shoujo’s GITADORA artwork and “syoujo” on Radical Shoujo iTunes. Yay inconsistences!
In this article I skim through the Touhou vocal library available on iTunes and Google Play and try to analyze some titles with a different romanization from what we are used to. I’ll see if they are correct or not and recognize the mistakes I’ve made. I won’t take into consideration titles with different spacing/romaji type, small typos (example: Wtashi nokoshi) or when an English word is written in kana instead of being translated (example: Gensou no sateraito). The format I will use is “Tiramisu version VS iTunes version”.
Tou! VS Shunkashuto~Tou!~
This is a curious case of those Japanese song titles which already have a romanized form (越-ETSU-, 死 ～shi～, etc.). The title of the song is meant to be read as “shunkashuutou!”. The X you can see in some title renditions are meant to cancel the other kanji. The title is basically “winter the best fuck the rest” (okay, sorry).
Kaze ni Noseta Negai VS Kaze ni noseta omoi
願い can’t be read as “omoi”, plus Ranko sings the song title
Enishi no Hana VS En no hana
Yes, the album title is En, but on this song is read as “enishi”. While the title is not sung, there are furigana on both En’s booklet and Area-ZERO’s Touhou Kuuenka sideA.
Aizou Rinbukyoku VS Aizou rondo
輪舞曲 means “rondo”, and that’s how Google Translate romanizes this word, for some reason. I also remember Comp said “aizou rondo” back when there was the Oriental Yumekikou piano poll… I’ll rewrite the romanization, as “aizou rondo” sounds better.
Revoleader Align VS Riboleader aligh
….ooookay. Ranko said that the title リボリーダー・アライン is something she made up, and the true meaning is a secret. I’ll just leave the spelling we are used with.
Shourai Renbo VS Binin renbo
I don’t know in which universe 焦雷 becomes “binin” (also, since these romanized titles don’t have apostrophes, it’s hard to tell if it’s びにん or びんいん). 焦雷 is mainly a Chinese word, but its pronounciation is jiāoléi. This website (with a list of thunder related words) confirms “shourai” as Japanese pronunciation.
Bongu na kami VS Gudonna kami
凡愚 can’t be read as “gudon” (even though it shares a kanji with 愚鈍), and Ranko sings the song title.
Karisome no seven wonder VS Kousho no seven wonder
Iwakutsuki no love letter VS Iwakutsuki no ensho
These two are particular cases. Suzu no Sorane’s track titles are the same of Forbidden Scrollery’s manga and the romanization on TC follows the one given in their respective namesake chapters. However, I remember Ranko shouting “kousho no seven wonder!!111” in a livestreamed concert and Comp saying “iwakutsuki no ensho” when there was the Suzu no Sorane piano poll. I honestly don’t know which romanization I should use.
Kogane no Itami VS Ougon no itami
黄金 can be read as “ougon”, but Ranko sings the title right at the beginning of the song.
Good Master VS Good meister
It’s indeed “meister”, and I’m the first to admit the mistake. This also explains why the title is written as マイスター and not as マスター (like in マスタースパーク – Master Spark)
Mou nani mo hoka ni iranai hazu sa VS Mou hokani nanimo iranai hazusa
This speaks by itself…
Sawareru Yume VS Fureru yume
Once again, Ranko sings the song title and CHILD HOOD’S END’s booklet has romanized titles.
To conclude, only Good Meister and Aizou Rondo will be renamed on this website. Maybe the two Suzu no Sorane songs as well. It will be done in the next few days, as I must add iTunes/Google Play links to the album pages and “iTunes title” to the song pages! A small page about lyrics and romaji will be also published.
PS: to think about it, if we look to some other Touhou artists who have made their music available on iTunes and Google Play, international BUTAOTOME titles could have been worse: for example ZUN HASALLTHETITLESWRITTENLIKETHIS.